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As much fun as playing in the snow can be, it’s not an activity that
can last for hours and hours. Same with ice skating or other winter
activities. While fresh air and a little outside activity is good for
you and the kids, when it’s cold outside, exposure needs to be limited.
So it’s not surprising that many children are climbing the walls with
cabin fever this time of year. They can’t go out and play. Many parents
limit the amount of TV the kids get to watch. And kids can only read so
much, if they’re old enough to read at all.
Just what’s a kid to do?
The Child Life Department at Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics has
the
answers. The experts there know all about cabin fever. The hospital
deals with it all year long. No matter the weather, patients are
trapped inside for long periods of time.
So Child Life experts spend a lot of time designing activities for kids
who must stay indoors. Following are some of the more popular
alternatives. They work just as well for healthy kids as the sick ones
admitted to Children’s Mercy.
Design your own T-shirt
For this activity, you’ll need a T-shirt, fabric crayons, sandpaper and
an iron.
On the sandpaper, have the children paint whatever design they’d like
to transfer onto their T-shirt. Be sure to tell them that any words
they write must be written backwards if they want them to appear
frontwards on the T-shirt.
Once the sandpaper has been decorated, turn it over onto the T-shirt
and cover it with a hot iron. The image will be transferred and a one-
of-a-kind T-shirt will be created.
A variation of the T-shirt theme includes the use of tulip paint and
sponges. The sponges can be cut into whatever shape the child desires
and then dipped in paint to make a design on the shirt.
Magazine bracelets
For this creative indoor activity, you’ll need old magazines, scissors,
glue, toothpicks or pencils, and a roll of elastic.
To begin, select colorful pages from the magazine and cut them into
strips, each strip narrowing from one-half inch wide at one end to one-
fourth inch wide at the other. You’ll need numerous strips, as they
will become the beads of the bracelets.
Take one strip at a time, beginning with the wider end of the strip,
and wrap it around the toothpick or pencil, whichever thickness you
prefer. After wrapping the strips around the pencil, glue the end to
the "bead" and pull it off the toothpick or pencil. Repeat the process
until you have wrapped all of the strips.
Take the paper "beads" and string them together on the elastic. Glue
the ends of the elastic together to create the bracelet. Finally, spray
with a clear acrylic to protect the paper.
Imagination Station
For this exercise, you’ll want to provide your children with scissors,
markers, paper, glue and elastic strips. Next step?
Let ’em go!
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